A listing of all my many adventures and misadventures in this passion that has overtaken me since I was 25 years old... knitting.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Managing Stress

Over the years, my tolerance for stress has decreased significantly...I used to be able to rally very quickly even when life stayed stressful for months at a time. Those days are gone.

Deny, Defer and Defeat
I honestly think that even when I was young and I thought I had a higher tolerance for stress, it wasn't always true. Stressful times would sometimes build to such a level that I'd have a melt-down.

I've had to learn ways of either avoiding stress, deferring it for a short period of time or letting is dissipate.

Obviously it's not always possible to avoid stress. But I have learned at least a few ways of saying "no" to requests of my time that would add to my stress level. I've also set my life up in ways where big areas of stress like finances, relationship issues and illness don't show up very often. And another way I've found I can avoid stress is to try and make some tasks in my life as routine as possible, so it doesn't require a lot of my attention for the purpose of worrying. An example is my traveling. When I fly (especially to Canada these days), I always keep my passport and boarding pass in the same place, I always park at the same airport parking facility, I try to book the same flights each week, I keep an extra set of toiletries at the hotel in Edmonton, etc., etc., etc.

When I do get stressed, and I don't have the ability to relax and let it dissipate (like when work is crazy and I'm in sleep deficit), I defer it as best I can by doing things that help alleviate stress in the short-run, but aren't long-term solutions. Such as drinking lots of coffee and eating lots of sugar.

Finally, I have found that relaxing, exercising, meditating and getting lots of sleep will help dissipate stress.

Suffice it to say that this week I had to rely WAY too much on caffeine and sugar and ended up being quite irritable with co-workers. I'll relax this weekend.

Current Knitting
I'm honestly not enjoying the crochet scarf project I started. I didn't feel compelled to pick it up even once this week. So I made no progress on it at all. I will finish it, but even my fiber project was irritating this week.

However, a woman at work has asked me to show her how to read knitting patterns. She knows how to cast-on, knit and purl and so I've been giving her lessons in a stitch pattern with yarn-overs, psso's and K2Tog's. She picks it up very quickly.

She also let me borrow some some bright red plastic knitting needles and some crappy acrylic mohair (I call it fauxhair), so I'm making a scarf for her mom with it.

I can always hope that Carol does one of her great "no-bull book reviews" about it.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Regarding theft of political signs, Red853 writes, "It is actually a felony, they are we found out to be the property of the actual political party not the candidate themself. Or so we were told by the state police."

It appears that in most states, it's just a petty crime of trespassing and theft, not a felony, but I still wouldn't do it anyway...Karma and all.

NCKnitter asks about the crochet scarf, "Love the scarf! Your own pattern?"

Yes, although inspired by a Danish scarf with no English translation for the pattern, I thought I might be able to figure it out...mine is very different.

Duffy asks, "Are the socks comfortable? I'm noticing the bunching at the front of the foot where the panel goes up the shin and am wondering if that's comfortable to wear."

I've not worn them with shoes yet, but the fabric is very soft and silky, so I imagine the bunching you noticed won't be too noticeable in the wearing.

Over the years, my tolerance for stress has decreased significantly...I used to be able to rally very quickly even when life stayed stressful for months at a time. Those days are gone.

Deny, Defer and Defeat
I honestly think that even when I was young and I thought I had a higher tolerance for stress, it wasn't always true. Stressful times would sometimes build to such a level that I'd have a melt-down.

I've had to learn ways of either avoiding stress, deferring it for a short period of time or letting is dissipate.

Obviously it's not always possible to avoid stress. But I have learned at least a few ways of saying "no" to requests of my time that would add to my stress level. I've also set my life up in ways where big areas of stress like finances, relationship issues and illness don't show up very often. And another way I've found I can avoid stress is to try and make some tasks in my life as routine as possible, so it doesn't require a lot of my attention for the purpose of worrying. An example is my traveling. When I fly (especially to Canada these days), I always keep my passport and boarding pass in the same place, I always park at the same airport parking facility, I try to book the same flights each week, I keep an extra set of toiletries at the hotel in Edmonton, etc., etc., etc.

When I do get stressed, and I don't have the ability to relax and let it dissipate (like when work is crazy and I'm in sleep deficit), I defer it as best I can by doing things that help alleviate stress in the short-run, but aren't long-term solutions. Such as drinking lots of coffee and eating lots of sugar.

Finally, I have found that relaxing, exercising, meditating and getting lots of sleep will help dissipate stress.

Suffice it to say that this week I had to rely WAY too much on caffeine and sugar and ended up being quite irritable with co-workers. I'll relax this weekend.

Current Knitting
I'm honestly not enjoying the crochet scarf project I started. I didn't feel compelled to pick it up even once this week. So I made no progress on it at all. I will finish it, but even my fiber project was irritating this week.

However, a woman at work has asked me to show her how to read knitting patterns. She knows how to cast-on, knit and purl and so I've been giving her lessons in a stitch pattern with yarn-overs, psso's and K2Tog's. She picks it up very quickly.

She also let me borrow some some bright red plastic knitting needles and some crappy acrylic mohair (I call it fauxhair), so I'm making a scarf for her mom with it.

I can always hope that Carol does one of her great "no-bull book reviews" about it.

Readers' Comments/Questions
Regarding theft of political signs, Red853 writes, "It is actually a felony, they are we found out to be the property of the actual political party not the candidate themself. Or so we were told by the state police."

It appears that in most states, it's just a petty crime of trespassing and theft, not a felony, but I still wouldn't do it anyway...Karma and all.

NCKnitter asks about the crochet scarf, "Love the scarf! Your own pattern?"

Yes, although inspired by a Danish scarf with no English translation for the pattern, I thought I might be able to figure it out...mine is very different.

Duffy asks, "Are the socks comfortable? I'm noticing the bunching at the front of the foot where the panel goes up the shin and am wondering if that's comfortable to wear."

I've not worn them with shoes yet, but the fabric is very soft and silky, so I imagine the bunching you noticed won't be too noticeable in the wearing.